Reference is made to commonly assigned co-pending patent application Ser. No. 09/204,219 filed herewith entitled xe2x80x9cDigital Printing, Metering and Recording of Graphical Information on The Face of A Mail Piecexe2x80x9d in the names of Meredith B. Fischer and Ronald Sansone, Ser. No. 09/204,382 filed herewith entitled xe2x80x9cMetering, Recording And Reading Graphical Information On The face Of A Mail Piece To Detect Misuse Of The Graphical Informationxe2x80x9d in the names of Ronald Sansone and Meredith B. Fischer, and Ser. No. 09/204,380 filed herewith entitled xe2x80x9cRecording Graphical Information On The face Of A Mail Piece And Placing Information About The Graphical Information In An Information-Based Indiciaxe2x80x9d in the names of Ronald Sansone and Meredith B. Fischer.
The invention relates generally to the field of postage meters and more particularly to the digital printing of postage indicia and the recording of other information on the face of a mail piece that is subsequently read.
Copyrights may be obtained for pictorial and graphic, works of fine, graphic and applied art, photographs, prints, maps, technical drawings and diagrams. Such works must include works of artistic craftsmanship insofar as their form, but not their mechanical or utilitarian aspects, are concerned. An artist obtains copyright protection for their xe2x80x9coriginal works of artxe2x80x9d when the works are fixed in a tangible medium. Thus, currently copyright protection is secured automatically upon creation.
In general, in the United States, copyright registration is a legal formality intended to make a public record of the basic fact of a particular copyright. Even though registration is not generally a requirement for copyright protection, the copyright law requires registration before any infringement suit may be filed in court.
Basically, the unauthorized making or publication of a copy of a copyrighted work is the essence of copyright infringement. An unauthorized copy is that which ordinary observation would cause one to be of the opinion that the copy had been taken from the work of another.
Mere similarity alone does not necessarily establish infringement. Fundamentally, a copyright affords protection against copying only. The copyright laws impose no prohibition against the independent creation of a work, even though it may be similar or identical to the copyrighted work. As a consequence, a claim of copyright infringement can be defeated by evidence that the accused work was independently produced.
Notwithstanding the copyright deterrence factor, many people use copyrighted artistic works or incorporate portions of copyrighted artistic works in their own works without receiving permission from the copyright owner. Photocopying machines and the internet have made it easier to copy artist copyrighted works. In fact, the above type of copyright infringement is very pervasive throughout our society.
The music industry has made an effort to protect the rights of music writers through ASCAP, which monitors the playing of music to assure that commercial use of such music is authorized. Copyright Clearing House has a scheme for representing authors and publishers to protect literary works. Each of these schemes involves paying a fixed fee for the right to play the copyrighted music or reproduce copyrighted writings, respectfully. Other than this, there are no organized and effective methods for protecting the rights of artistic copyright owners.
There is also a problem with regard to those who wish to reproduce copyrighted artistic material, but have no convenient means for making payment. One using the internet wishing to reproduce an artistic work would have a near-impossible task trying to obtain consent from the copyright owner, who maybe thousands of miles away. The person wishing to copy the material with consent would not know the cost of producing such material and would not know where to send payment. Clearly, it would be advantageous if a system would be provided whereby the public would have the ability to obtain authorization for reproducing the copyrighted work.
Historically, postage meters have been mechanical and electromechanical devices that: maintain, through mechanical or xe2x80x9celectronic registersxe2x80x9d (postal security devices), an account of all postage printed and the remaining balance of prepaid postage; and print postage postmarks (indicia) that are accepted by the postal service as evidence of the prepayment of postage. With the introduction of postage meters that print a postal indicia by means of digital printing, it became possible to print artistic copyrighted works in the vicinity of the postal indicia. Users of postage meters also have a problem in reproducing copyrighted artistic works, since no convenient means for making payment to the owner of the copyright currently exists.
Soon, small business mailers may be able to use their desktop computer and printer to apply postage directly onto envelopes or labels while applying an address. The United States Postal Service Engineering Center recently published a notice of proposed specification that may accomplish the foregoing. The title of the specification is Information-Based Indicia Program Postal Security Device Specification, dated Jun. 13, 1996, herein incorporated by reference. The Information-Based Indicia Program specification includes both proposed specifications for the new indicium and proposed specifications for a postal security device (PSD). The proposed Information-Based Indicia (IBI) consists of a two-dimensional bar code containing hundreds of bytes of information about the mail piece and certain human-readable information. The indicium includes a digital signature to preclude the forgery of indicia by unauthorized parties. The postal security device is a security device that produces a cryptographic digital signature for the indicium and performs the function of postage meter registers.
The IBIP is a United States Postal Service initiative supporting the development and implementation of a new form of postal indicia. The IBIP specification is intended to address the counterfeiting threat. An IBIP indicium substitutes for a postage stamp or as a postage meter imprint as evidence of the fact that postage has been paid on mail pieces. The Information-Based Indicia technology of the United States Postal Service offers the postal customer a way to pay for postage without stamps. Envelopes may be franked using the postal customer""s personal computer, a personal computer compatible add-on and the customer""s printer. The PSD provides postal value storage and the link to the USPS and the manufacturer of the personal computer compatible add-on. The IBI should be able to be read at any time to verify that funds have been paid.
Mailers who would use graphics for advertising usually include in the mailing a reply card or a 800 telephone number to call to order the offered product. Knowledge of the arrival of the mailing allows the mailer to anticipate staffing requirements needed to respond to the influx of orders. Historically, a mailer would hire an outside service provider who would provide a list of agent addresses to send some of the mailings to. The service provider would have its agents notify the service provider upon receipt of the mailing, thereupon the service provider would notify the mailer of the receipt of certain specified mailings. A disadvantage of the above process is that it is costly and imprecise. Another disadvantage of the process is that people who have no intention of buying the product receive mailings. An additional disadvantage of the above process is that a very limited sampling is obtained.
The present invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing an inexpensive method and system that permits artistic works that are accessed on the internet or from a data center to be downloaded pursuant to an agreement with a representative of the copyright owner to users of postal security devices to pay for their use of copyrighted artistic works. A scanner at the post would read the already existing indicia and other information on the mail piece and then extract a unique identifier contained on the mail piece that is associated with the artistic or graphical information contracted to appear on the mail piece. The scanner will also read tracking information that is contained in the unique identifier. The extracted unique identifier would be periodically uploaded to a data center. The data center would compare the unique identifier on the mail piece with information about artistic or graphical information that has previously been uploaded from sending postal security devices to determine if misuse has been committed in the production of the artistic or graphical information.
The invention also counts the number of times given artistic works or graphical information are read by postal scanners. Thus, the data center will be able to determine actual usage of the artistic works or graphical information and compare them with the contracted usage of the artistic works or graphical information. The invention also can process the information read by the postal scanners and determine whether or not the mailer wants a tracking report produced. If tracking has been elected, data is extracted from the data scanned by the postal scanners and a report is generated detailing the arrival time and location of the mailers mail pieces.